Labour Court recommends job evaluation for Merck, Sharp And Dohme attendants

The Labour Court recommended that Merck, Sharp And Dohme and the Services Industrial Professional Technical Union urgently establish objective procedures to evaluate changes to eight Control Room Attendants’ work and agree an appropriate grading before their current agreement expired. The recommendation was signed on 18 December 1995. The union said the attendants’ duties and responsibilities had changed since 1988, particularly after a new control system increased workload and supervisory duties. It sought an upgrade. The company argued that the work had not changed fundamentally compared with other grades and cited an earlier Court review that confirmed the attendants were graded correctly. The Court found that changes had affected the work but that there were no procedures or criteria to evaluate them objectively. Any improvement resulting from the evaluation should take effect from the date of the recommendation.